An yet when asked what these two buffoons think of the graffiti, they think it's a shame and that is why they need better teachers. Look at the dichotomy. You have a man in action, Meade, who is actually doing something to show his utter disdain for what these 'uneducated' fools have done to the monument, while the entitled grist of Madison watch him do all the work instead of even remotely offering to help if not take up the mantle of the clean-up they so don't like themselves. Leftards are selfish, foolish idiots.

oh my. You two have to remember that a lot of people don't read political blogs. A lot of people have no idea what "tea-bagging" means in terms of sexual slang.

Don't you have any relatives or friends that aren't worldly? (I don't know what to call it - "worldly" and "sophisticated" isn't quite right, because someone can be well read and not know this term. I had never heard of the term before I read about it on some political blogs last year.)

There's a lot of relative innocents out there in terms of slang. I don't think these two knew what you were talking about.

Doesn't know the meaning of the word "teabaggers" and doesn't know that "workers of the world unite" is a communist slogan? Meade is right--either he's being deliberately disingenuous or, else, we do need better teachers indeed.

I'd like to ask someone how they'd react to putting a slogan like "work shall set you free" on something. See if the context bothers them then--if if they agree with the abstract sentiment to some degree.

I knew what tea bagging was because of FPS games. In order to do it (in game) you usually need to shoot the other player from close range. It is meant to humiliate the other player with your awesomeness. So, when someone calls Tea Party people "tea baggers" it's like admitting to being out played. I don't get it.

Ugh. Tell me one instance, just one, of a Tea Party member connected to a rally having defaced a public monument, EVER.

To the infinite credit of most liberals, they wouldn't dream of doing so, either -- clearly, "Workers of the World Unite" is the work of a progressive malcontent with scant respect for Heg, or any other patriot.

Way overboard on the language policing, Althouse and Meade! Waaay overboard!

If someone is using the phrase "Workers of the World Unite", then so what? It is a catchy phrase. I'm sure that they aren't advocating any communist takeover of America. Your virulent revulsion to it is itself off-putting, making you seem like you are some sort of neo-McCarthyist.

And then Meade flips out when he hears "teabagger". A "pejoritive" "homophophic" term? Come on! Get a sense of perspective and accept the label... a little self-depreciating humor can go a long way. But self-righteous indignation has the opposite effect, and turns a political discussion into a personal battle. Not a good strategy in dealing with people.

You two look bad here. Really bad. Elite lawyer dude in the suit and sunglasses won this verbal confrontation.

If someone is using the phrase "Workers of the World Unite", then so what? It is a catchy phrase. I'm sure that they aren't advocating any communist takeover of America. Your virulent revulsion to it is itself off-putting, making you seem like you are some sort of neo-McCarthyist.

Associating yourself in any way with the genocidal history of communism is something that no sane or decent person does.

Virulent revulsion to commie rhetoric is a sign of intelligence.

Over 100 million people were murdered in the 20th century in the name of communism.

In the same way that sane and decent people don't quota Nazi political slogans, sane and decent people don't use communist slogans.

You know this about Nazi-ism, I'm sure. How is it you don't know it about communism?

The lawyer is chewing gum! How did he pass law school? How did he pass 3rd grade?

I'm also willing to bet this is the lawyer who says he has an office window facing the Capitol. He must have spotted you, Ann. And, he came running out with his friend.

Meade washing the statue down was just an extra. Glad Meade went after what "tea bagging" means! It gets bewildering when you realize how the English language just conforms to words changing their meanings over time.

Mary Beth, forgive me if I misunderstood, but the term as applied to FPS games is not what makes 'teabagger' a homophobic insult. It's an oft-homosexual act whereby a man drops his balls into the mouth of another man*, resembling the action of dropping a teabag into scalding water. Like fudgepacker, teabagger is used as a synonym for a gay man.

(*Not just men, obviously, but I would say it's not that common in heterosexual sex, outside of honeymoons)

If the lawyer knew what the term "cake" meant in 18th century France, he might not have used that sign.

Cake ws not a light sweet confection that we know today. It was the leftover from the baking of bread. The cake flour was rolled on brick stoves and became the working surface for rolling subsequent bread batter. The cake flour trapped the mortar dust and brick particles. After the bakers had finished rolling all ofthe bread, the cake was discarded - it was usually fed to the animals.

Humans who ate the "cake" would suffer from tooth damage and, on occasion, digestive problems cause by the contaminants in the "cake."

People who said "let them eat cake" were not uncaring, they were very cruel.

If someone is using the phrase "Workers of the World Unite", then so what? It is a catchy phrase. I'm sure that they aren't advocating any communist takeover of America. Your virulent revulsion to it is itself off-putting, making you seem like you are some sort of neo-McCarthyist.

Are you kidding? That quote is the single most famous communist quote in the world.

The self-identified lawyer repeats several times his disdain for "tea baggers" who are "stupid enough to vote against their own interests," because they are duped by "corporations." This is the "What's the Matter With Kansas" cliche the Left loves to recite. "The rich" delude the ignorant masses, the "workers" by distracting them with conservative social issues like gay marriage and abortion, so that they vote for Republicans---who of course are the party of "corporations"--- and therefore against the workers' own interests. The layers of delusional doctrine contained in this neat portion of the leftist catechism are multiple. This lawyer is as ignorant of the Marxist origins of this idea as he is of the meaning of the term "teabagger" or that "workers of the world unite" is perhaps Marx's most famous quote. He has simply absorbed it somewhere and repeats it, ironically, as he accuses others of being ignorant.

"There's a lot of relative innocents out there in terms of slang. I don't think these two knew what you were talking about."

You're lying.

All three cable news networks extensively covered this. CNN in particular had a field day when they decided to make this a common democrat slur against the Tea Partiers.

Meade is a great guy. I'm glad to have learned more about him over the past few weeks.

Wisconsin has a choice. It can let liars and antidemocrat thugs ruin their state, or it can punish the democrat party in the next election. If there aren't major penalties for these events, they will become far more common.

I was just being a worker of the world in my little Madison, WI, scrubbing graffiti off the base of the monument, and those two dips - a lawyer and a public union teacher - amble up and never even offer to lift a finger. Yeah, when the teacher dude suggested "teabaggers" did it, I had heard enough.

If someone is using the phrase "Workers of the World Unite", then so what? It is a catchy phrase. I'm sure that they aren't advocating any communist takeover of America.

I mean, really, though. It's like standing outside dressed up as a hot dog and handing out fliers about a Hot Dog Store, and then claiming there's no way you could be said to be promoting hot dog eating.

Just moronic. Utterly, comically dumb. Julius once again proves himself to be a silly person unversed in history or philosophy. What's new?

Yes, the point of that comment living in history was that it was a dismissal of the needs of starving people.

Scott Walker is also dismissing the idea that these unionized public employees are starving to death. In turn, they do all they can to claim to be the most needy victims, so oppressed... just like in the holocaust under Hitler/Walker!

It's disgusting.

It's also hilarious to see FLS whine about cleaning products without expressing anything about the people who deliberately defaced a monument with communist crap.

Communists hate anything that isn't communist. They can't live side by side with anything, so they have to deface it.

Snap! Meade should counter one day, if challenged by the disingenuous about the wrongfulness of the sentiment underlying the slogan, by saying, "Then you wouldn't mind if someone grafitti'ed Arbeit Macht Frei, the concentration camp slogan, unto the monument?".

When I was a kid, there was this little store that made press-on t-shirts. I wanted the one with Mt. Rushmore on it with the slogan: "Even the best get stoned."

The lady behind the counter tried to talk me into getting something else, but I was adamant.

When I got home, proudly wearing my new shirt, my parents laughed hysterically at me. I knew it was the shirt but I couldn't figure out why they were laughing. Still, I had the good sense not to wear the shirt again.

I'd like to ask someone how they'd react to putting a slogan like "work shall set you free" on something. See if the context bothers them then--if if they agree with the abstract sentiment to some degree.

It's a sexual act done by a man on a man or a woman. It may be used in the homosexual community, but my (very) straight friends and I have used "teabag"/"teabagger" for years, even before the Tea Party came about.

Yeah, I would expect some serious ass-kicking, kung-fu-style and all that... with hot sauce too.

Seriously, though, I think your videography of this whole thing has been great. You've provided a valuable journalistic service to the world just as the MSM punted. I don't want my negative opinion of your approach in this particular video to imply that I think any less positively about your other ones.

Generally, in your videos you resemble the old-school Michael Moore, from back in the Roger & Me days when it was just him and his video camera... when he wasn't a far-left political icon. Moore pioneered a new sort of in-your-face documentary; you seem to innovating with your video camera in a similar way.

So, Royal -- When the Tea Party types are winning political battles against public-sector leeching unions, the Tea Partiers are placing their political testicles into the mouth of the public-sector unions and saying, "Suck gently on this new policy until it explodes onto the social landscape that is your face."

I don't know how Meade stays so calm dealing with the lefty protestors in Madison. I guess he's had a lot of practice, by now, but I would certainly have found it a challenge in that situation. Just the way that the teacher guy said, "this is why we need better teachers" early in the clip made me feel the uneasy recognition of the common leftist tactic of trying to force tacit agreement upon everyone. So when he said "teabagger" later, I wouldn't have been able to be very restrained in responding to him.

"If someone is using the phrase "Workers of the World Unite", then so what? It is a catchy phrase. I'm sure that they aren't advocating any communist takeover of America. Your virulent revulsion to it is itself off-putting, making you seem like you are some sort of neo-McCarthyist."

Don't be such a neo-obtuse asshole. The leaders of your catchy little workers of the world exterminated over 100 million of their neighbors. Don't bull shit--when did you learn that the workers of the world clap trap was Marxist-seventh grade?

You probably forgive Che tee shirts, too. Che was a sociopath and a murderer-the beret is cool, though.

Meade called out the teacher and the lawyer for what they were--liars. It's possible that they were simply ignorant fools; plenty of teachers and lawyers are, but these two got caught talking shit, got called on it, and unsuccessfully tried to hide behind a mound of horse shit.

I support individual citizens who make an effort to clean up their environs. Graffitilantes as it were. At the same time, I think we should be willing to categorize the vandals. The peeps who fucked up Hans did so in a pretty decent way it seems to me. Come to Los Angeles if you want to see true bastards in action.

Old Dad -- Julius is just stupid is all. In way over his head intellectually here.

I mean, just piss poor arguments that evidence a staggering ignorance of the world. Reminds me of me when I was 20 or so -- best writer around for miles, and a goddamn shame everything I wrote was so vacuous.

I'd like to ask someone how they'd react to putting a slogan like "work shall set you free" on something. See if the context bothers them then--if if they agree with the abstract sentiment to some degree.

With all due respect to the statue, I'd like to see someone chalk a dollar sign at its base.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."

This is the vibe I continually got from the lawyer. 'Workers of the World Unite is Communist? That's news to me. Teabagger is a sexually vulgar term? Since when!'

But bless you, Meade, for taking initiative and cleaning that graffiti off. And it's quite likely that the next few rain storms will break down the remaining graffiti that wasn't removed with tap water. It tends to be slightly more acidic, which is what chalk responds to.

Not to condone graffiti at all, which I find pretty annoying, but that basically looked like chalk, which would have washed off at the next decent rainfall. Meade may, however, be able to parlay his heroic quasi-journalistic cleaning spree into a union job cleaning off all the various forms of graffiti in the capitol area. Truth told, this chalk shit is done all over the campus, on sidewalks, on buildings, etc. Shouldn't be done on a civil war memorial though.

Victoria, tea bagging in game involves crouching over your fallen opponent (Mashing the B button in Halo) and crouching down repeatedly over his head/face. Same motions but with more clothing. It symbolizes the same act.

I know they mean it as an insult but because I learned what it is this way first, I have a hard time seeing as such.

I ask if they meant that I dominate them and humiliate them. Then they try to explain that they really meant something dirty. (I may point out at this time that I don't have testicles.) Then I say the term is such an overused cliche now. And, besides, makes me picture them as the tea baggee. This is the point the conversations tend to end.

Mary Beth, there is a dominance aspect to the whole sexual teabagger thing that as a woman, I don't get. It's a bit like the implied face wash of a slam dunk -- I look at guys making fun of the guy who just got slam dunked underneath the rim and go, so what.

Meade would not walk around so angry if he finally let go of Ann's skirt and got a job.

I'm actually thinking Meade should enroll in law school. The process would sharpen his argumentation skills (don't look to me as a counterexample) considerably, and give him another way to help the community as he is highly motivated to do. Hopefully tuition remission comes with the benefits package.

I really have no patience for people who think that living under the oppression of modern unions is a good thing or that having their dues taken from their pay is some form of freedom. They march in lockstep and chant in unison and think that they're freely expressing themselves. Did any of them every speak out against the union line? They'd find out quickly how much freedom they have.

Governor Walker has been nothing but civil toward them while they compared him to Hitler and other dictators, mobbed and defaced public property and obstructed government operations. They are incapable of reasoned argument, because it would soon become clear that they're not victims of injustice but rather privileged compared to most people who pay their salaries. Their skulls must be as dense as that granite.

OK. I actually watched the interminable thing and agree that it doesn't cast Meade in a good light. Chill dude.

Funny how people see things so differently. I was watching it, and I thought, "FINALLY someone is standing up for the grandmothers, grandfathers, moms, and dads whose only 'crime' is concern for their country, and who deserve far better than continuous use of a crude sexual epithet as a descriptor."

I wish there were more people like Meade out there - people who don't just listen to decent people being described that way, and stand there with their mouths shut.

It's not a term that logically relates only to gay oral sex, by the way, and I had seen it used to describe heterosexual oral sex for years before the Tea Party movement began, going back at least into the 1990s.

It's certainly used by the Left with a pejorative intent, though. If they're not demonizing gay sex, they're demonizing oral sex. So I've never understood it. I thought the Democrats were really big on oral sex being good for the country. Wasn't there that whole "nothing wrong with a blowjob" meme during the Clinton impeachment?

Meade would not walk around so angry if he finally let go of Ann's skirt and got a job.

I love how you lefties have absolutely no problem with sexism if you think you can use it to kick someone in the groin.

Consider the irony of a Democrat mocking someone using a sexist insult after watching that video, a video where two complete fools reveal their ignorance on so many, many levels. But they looked never so foolish as when they were made to realize that calling someone a "teabagger" is akin to calling someone a "faggot". The insult only works if you believe that being gay is shameful, and is therefore inherently homophobic.

In that context of a perfectly exquisite revelation of left-leaning hypocrisy, we get a commenter who engages is precisely the same form of self-discrediting speech.

I dunno if it's also an urban legend that Eskimos have 88 different names for "snow," but along the same lines as that:

Guys who've been talking/writing to one another about particular aspects of receiving oral sex -- something enjoyed by homosexual guys but also by heterosexual guys -- for a long, long time. We talk about what's important in our lives, and we talk about it in slang.

Slang terms that are particularly evocative are the ones that catch on. This one is, and did.

Those who didn't know that may also be the kind of people who think there's only one kind of snow, I guess.

Fudge packer. Pillow biter. Yes (but funny). Cocksucker has left the reservation long ago. Tea bagger. Really? Lost in the bullshit was an interesting conversation about "workers of the world unite.." Is it bad per se or just because the commies said it?

I think in the context of calling Tea Party members "teabaggers", people associate the term with Anderson Cooper - who is at least rumored to be gay. That's probably why so many think of it as an epithet having to do with gay sex.

You know, I love when people trot out the whole "McCarthy" thing like it is an insult, completely oblivious to the fact that McCarthy was, it turns out, proven right. Maybe he was a tad bit aggressive, and his tactics a bit over-the-top, but in the end he was right. But then, kids today have shitty agenda-driven teachers, so...

If I say, "Craig Biggio hit a three-bagger," most guys would know I meant that he hit a triple and advanced to third base.

If I had said, before 2009, "Craig Biggio is a tea-bagger," most people would have thought I was accusing him of performing oral sex on another man.

Some people would characterize that as an insult -- i.e., the people who think being called gay is insulting.

It's only an insult, in other words, if you are intolerant yourself, AND you project onto your target that same intolerance.

So why is it again that Democrats so clearly think that they're insulting fiscal conservatives by calling us "Tea-Baggers"? Isn't it almost exactly equivalent to calling us "faggots"? Why would anyone care, unless they and we both thought there was something awful about either homosexuality or oral sex?

The other thing about why teabagging is associated with homosexuality: most -- though certainly not all -- women don't give a lot of blow jobs. My impression has been that it is a little bit of a chore.

The blow job is definitely a sexual act that is going to occur a lot more between two males.

I'm sure teabagger as a term is associated with some gay subtext but it is so very embarrassingly weak. I cringe every time Bill Maher says it and I find him generally funny. It is definitely an attempt to say tea partiers are "gay" but it is so stupid and attenuated that even gay people aren't offended by it. At least on a bigotry scale. Everyone should be offended on a hamfistedly stupid and not even funny scale.

You know, I love when people trot out the whole "McCarthy" thing like it is an insult, completely oblivious to the fact that McCarthy was, it turns out, proven right.

I love how you can appeal to a leftist's sensibilities by informing them that the term "teabagger" may be insulting to gay people, but if you tried to make them understand they're saying something vulgar about someone's grandmother, it would most likely completely fail to resonate with them.

"Why would anyone care, unless they and we both thought there was something awful about either homosexuality or oral sex?"

-- than the answer occurred to me: It's okay to be offended by the fact someone is trying very hard to offend you, even if there's really no logic underlying their insult. Even a puerile, ridiculous taunt is sometimes an appropriate basis to take at least mild offense, perhaps more depending on the circumstances.

Shark -- McCarthy was right in the sense that I would say "there are 10,000 spiders in my kitchen" and it turns out that there were maybe 30 spiders in my kitchen. And then I say, "I was right! There were a whole bunch of spiders in my kitchen."

Well, of course, Lombardi Chick. I mean, them people are, like, you know, totally old and stuff. Them grandmas need to just STFU, and like, be put into homes and only trotted out when we bus them to the polls so we can use their votes for progressive candidates. Buncha teabaggin' grandmas are useless otherwise, man. Let's get some pizza... Workers of the world unite, baby! Wooooooo!

Here's been my experience: number of blow jobs decreases as number of relationship days go by. That's just me, and that's what it seems like is the deal for a lot of people.

A couple women I hooked up with in days of yore really, really loved giving blow jobs. Like kind of weirdly. I wonder what they are up to now. I wonder if they settled down and still suck with verve and gusto and merriment. I hope so.

I should add that before teabagger became a term associated with the tea party, I always associated it with frat boys pranking their drunk sleeping buddies or douchy kids playing Halo. I never thought teabagger == faggot.

Did you see how Meade strode into the shot like an avenging angel, with his short, purposeful strides, looking straight ahead, not even acknowledging the person of his wife filming him?

Indeed. It must be very strange to be New Media Meade. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.

"I love how you can appeal to a leftist's sensibilities by informing them that the term "teabagger" may be insulting to gay people, but if you tried to make them understand they're saying something vulgar about someone's grandmother, it would most likely completely fail to resonate with them.

Some people are more deserving of respect than others, you see."

What more could you expect from people content with pulling the plug on grandma because Obamacare would prefer to fund "Pat", "Robin", or "Chris" to have as many sex changes as possible, or Suzie to have as many abortions as she desires?

Meade had just the right balance of civility and edginess. He looked pretty cool. The teacher seemed affable and sincere. He was in a state of plausible denial. That lawyer was why everyone distrusts lawyers. He wasn't a slick liar. He was a bad liar. The teacher may have been the slick liar inasmuch I would tend to believe him, but not the lawyer......If you double the pay of sanitationmen, you will have happier sanitationmen but not cleaner streets. In like way, improving the pay and perks of teachers will not produce better students.....I've got nothing against teachers making a decent salary, but it's a crock to say that that will translate into our kids acing the SAT's.

I do have to say however that some of the complaints in this thread regarding the lack of help Meade got from passersby towards scrubbing the statue's pedestal are a little unfair -- I suspect few Madisonians stroll the streets with bucket and scrub brush in hand, nor perhaps are quite the Hans Christian Heg fetishists as Meade seems to be. Is Heg a relative of yours, Meade? Or perhaps of Ann's?

Well, Seven Nachos, he may have exaggerated the problem, but not by a hell of a lot. Every year, we find ojt that more and more of the people he zeroed in on were, in fact either working directly for Moscow, or working for/with communist front groups. The Venona releases, memoirs, old Soviet records etc. all continue to provide more and more evidence vindicating him. He wasn't perfect by any means, but being a lout doesn't automatically make someone wrong.

The Left has used the Orwellian tactic of redefining words and/ or inventing words as part of controlling the narrative, and frankly I'm fed up with it.

Actually, it IS my opinion that being a Leftist makes you a bad American simply by the virtue that Leftism leads to Socialism leads to Nazism/Marxism/Leninism/Maoism/Whateverthefuckism leads to Communism leads to the death of millions.

Good job Meade. That workman like effort to restore order is appreciated. The disorderly Communists had no authority to go around the State's Capitol and Heg's Monument "marking it" as their territory by conquest. That territory has already been marked to honor an American State and a man who earned it. Washing off their false claims of Communist conquest affirms that Wisconsin is not that easily conquered. Graffiti is a form of vandalism. The old criminal misdemeanor applied to graffiti writers was called "Malicious Mischief".

And it wazn't just the "handful of spies" - it was the deliberate acts of working with or on behalf of a foreign government with a repugnant ideology in order to destroy our system and replace it with the aforementioned repugnant murderous system. THAT was the real problem.

Seven Machos: "anyone using or reading workers of the world unite must understand that it's a communist thing to say and cannot be un-associated from communism. It's the very tag line of communism."

True, but have you ever watched "Jay Walking?" I suspect a very small percentage of people under 30 would be able to connect the quote to the source and would, necessarily, judge it by its Dean Smith delay tactics before the shot clock.

I seldom back your postings 100% (because of ideological differences, or perhaps because I can't always separate your rhetoric from your sarcasm) but I'm with you at least 90% on this one.

Yes, "workers of the world, unite" is from the Communist Manifesto, the next to last sentence in fact. However, trade union all over the world are unashamedly Marxist, it's only here in America where the socialist underpinnings have been expunged or disguised. Since the fall of the Soviet state the Marxist have been slowly crawling out from under the floorboards of American Labor. This isn't surprising. What is surprising is that members of public sector employee unions, who hold the whiphand over county commissions, school boards, and city councils all over the country should consider themselves part of Marx's proletariat. What's objectionable is the presence of graffiti of any sentiment or ideological slant on a public monument.

The whole "teabagger" dispute (I choose not to label it argument) struck me as seriously wrongheaded. The suit speculates that the graffito is the work of teabaggers, by which he innocently means persons sympathetic to the Tea Party movement, at least that's what he claims. Meade leaps to the defense of... who? not Tea Party adherents, the person presumably being denigrated by the allusion to a sexual practice, but gays (or specifically gay men).

Now, let us assume that one is perfectly comfortable with gays in our midst, since this is the fin de siècle default enlighten position it's a safe bet. If we personally accept and advocate the wider acceptance of gays then how can a non-violent sexual practice of gay men be any more objectionable than gay men themselves? Surely an enlighten person could not say "I'm fine with gays as long as they do nothing untoward with their wee-wees."

To put it another way suppose the suit guy had said "that vandalism is the work of those Tea Party fuckers." Does Meade rise to the defense of heterosexuals? Or deos he defend Tea Partiers from scurrilous attacks, which the slur "teabagger" is meant to be when applied to the Tea Party, but is not when applied to gay men generally as it is either accurate (but void of moral consequence) or inaccurate (I assume not all gay men enjoy that kid of thing) I insist on not a slur on gay men (please don't make me use that awful neologism homopho...) because the perspns who popularized that insult would all insist that they approve of gays and wouldn't insult or denigrate them for the world.

Melodramatic outrage over cleaning up statues aside, this was the most entertaining video you've ever posted. It's like 14 minutes of the best Christopher Guest movie. Pure genius. And @ 7:00 when you pan to the man in shorts...I'm seriously rolling here. Bravo.

And as a gay man, teabagger is not offensive to me, nor is it homophobic. You don't think straight men teabag straight women? Please. You call the guys in the video disingenuous?! You two and your contrived sensitivity is too much

Whether it's pejorative against gays is immaterial. It's still crass, vulgar, and has no place in public discourse.

However, I'm inclined to think it is pejorative against gays because I've yet to meet a woman who enjoys being teabagged. Teabagging is kind of the official gay passtime now that pseudophedrine is so hard to get. Kind of like how hockey is a prototypically Canadian sport, even though anyone of any nationality can play it (poorly). You think teabagging, you think homosexual even though mechanically women can participate, too.

I suspect the vast majority of people (before the whole tea party thing) thought of teabagging as having someone stick their balls in the mouth of an incapacitated victim as is done frequently on xbox live and occasionally in frat houses. The whole gay thing only makes sense because it is intended to be insulting but perhaps it is meant to map to rapist rather than fag? Just a thought.

In a sense I think the teaching moment was lost in the desire to win a debate. You had them with their disgust at the graffiti. No one is converted in a single debate, the key is to leave a mental question. (Essentially the method of the Fabians).

We're fighting 100 years of indoctrination, it's not going to be won in a day.

And thank you, Ann and Meade for cleaning that monument to a great man and a great and noble struggle.

Except that to the extent one can be free, work IS what makes one free. Notwithstanding the horrible associations of course. A crazy Muslim detonating a bomb strapped to their chest while screaming God is good doesn't make God not good.

I think what you are all missing here is how this "teacher" deflected blame with this comment "Teabaggers probably did it"I'm surprised he didn't call Meade a Walker Plant.Focusing on the term teabagger, only feeds the basic formula of liberals, who use straw man and ad hominem arguments to rile you up. Like some of the comments here from liberals, it's best to ignore the ad hominem, and go for the basic ignorance of their premise. If they have one that is.

while it is reasonable to expect that, in the course of two men having sex, there is likely to be some contact with testicles, orally or otherwise, the term 'teabagging' (in spite of what wiki and slang dictionaries may tell you) does not come from the gay community.'teabagging' is the invention of drunken and ostensibly hetero frat boys who, not satisfied by using a magic marker to draw moustaches and risque pics, and/or writing naughty words on the bodies of their passed-out buddy's body, came up with the idea that one reveler would lay his nuts on the sleeper's forehead while another would snap a photo of the event, much to the amusement and merriment of all involved... and then have another good laugh when the sleeper sees the pic the following day... freakin' hilarious, dude !!so enough already with the 'it's a gay thing' or 'it's a homophobic slur'. it's really just a dorky, sloppy drunk thing...and THAT'S insulting !

Ergot is the hallucinogenic fungus on wet stored rye that when ingested made people flip out and appear insane, the origin of LSD. It's been proposed to be the source of the werewolf myth. Or so I read in the Smithsonian or summat.

yar know of course it was the very teapartiers who came up with thar moniker teabagger without having seen requisite john waters film thusly not knowin thar lingo and further thus the source of much sniggerin on the left side of the aisle...well every side of the isle but juju covered floor from wence yar have spontaneously evolved...ps sarge had hoped for a higher level of discourse here in altreality land but really yar got nuthin on them central florida trailer denizens yar are findin the common ground wiv ps any of yar know how to free the bolthead and LP from the carrier of this here hk? how many of yar effete shiney white trash got strong enough fingers? bahahahaha

Melodramatic outrage over cleaning up statues aside, this was the most entertaining video you've ever posted. It's like 14 minutes of the best Christopher Guest movie. Pure genius. And @ 7:00 when you pan to the man in shorts...I'm seriously rolling here. Bravo.

It fascinates me that so much vitriol is being directed at teachers while none whatsoever is saved for the admins who regularly hobble their curricula - & influential groups like the Texas Board Of Education are off the radar completely. The infamous origin of America's dumbing-down of its schools under Ronald Reagan (PBUH) is, of course, UNPOSSIBLE by definition.

Also, kindly recall that "Teabagger" was the name "TEA Party Patriots" chose for themselves. Contrary to popular legend, it was NOT an innocent mistake - the owners of the name joyfully revelled in its vulgarity ("Tea Bag The Dems Before They Tea Bag You!") but this brilliant sobriquet quickly became a footbullet, to the surprise of nobody with a clue.

If the term offends you, take it up with the nativist dolts who CHOSE it for themselves.

Perhaps while you're at it you can ask them when they intend to start protesting for the abolition of standing armies or political parties as a whole, since both were seen by America's founders as fundamentally inimical to liberty. THAT would make for a video that is both educational & entertaining.

LOL Of The Day: A majority of Americans, when asked, believed that "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" was a quote from Thomas Jefferson.

Methadras: And yet when asked what these two buffoons think of the graffiti, they think it's a shame and that is why they need better teachers. Look at the dichotomy. You have a man in action, Meade, who is actually doing something to show his utter disdain for what these 'uneducated' fools have done to the monument, while the entitled grist of Madison watch him do all the work instead of even remotely offering to help if not take up the mantle of the clean-up they so don't like themselves

Reminds me of a Noonan piece:

"Once about 10 years ago there was a story--you might have read it in your local tabloid, or a supermarket tabloid like the National Enquirer--about an American man and woman who were on their honeymoon in Australia or New Zealand. They were swimming in the ocean, the water chest-high. From nowhere came a shark. The shark went straight for the woman, opened its jaws. Do you know what the man did? He punched the shark in the head. He punched it and punched it again. He did not do brilliant commentary on the shark, he did not share his sensitive feelings about the shark, he did not make wry observations about the shark, he punched the shark in the head. So the shark let go of his wife and went straight for him. And it killed him. The wife survived to tell the story of what her husband had done. He had tried to deck the shark. I told my friends: That's what a wonderful man is, a man who will try to deck the shark."

AST wins the thread at 12:00am in terms of correctly summarizing the basic position of the 'oppressed' union 'worker'.

BTW does anyone get the idea that the term 'worker' implies 'uniformity'? I reject 'worker' as a descriptor for it homogenizes people and erases a certain individualism/uniqueness.

Individual rights, NOT group rights.

Meade and Ann, thanks again for being relevant and putting yourselves out there. You are providing great contrast to this situation which is being largely played out as a one-sided affair, i.e., Gov. Wlaker sending teachers to internment camps.

Also, kindly recall that "Teabagger" was the name "TEA Party Patriots" chose for themselves. Contrary to popular legend, it was NOT an innocent mistake - the owners of the name joyfully revelled in its vulgarity ("Tea Bag The Dems Before They Tea Bag You!") but this brilliant sobriquet quickly became a footbullet, to the surprise of nobody with a clue.

Thats such bullshit. It was one guy with a sign: "Teabag them before they teabag you".

You know its offensive, yet you continue to weasel in this justification for it.

If the term offends you, take it up with the nativist dolts who CHOSE it for themselves.

Chris Rock chose to refer to himself as a n*gger. Using your libtard logic, its okay to use that term and if blacks are offended by it, they should take it up with Chris Rock?

People talk about grandmothers as if they were born during the Spanish-American War. A lot of grandmothers, Ann as an example, were born in the first cohort of Baby Boomers and came of age in the Sexual Revolution. A great many more lived through WWII.

They're hardly that innocent.

On the subject of the graffiti, it's clearly part of the entitlement mindset - I want to make my mark here and I don't care what damage I'm doing to whomever's property or what it takes to clean it up (how dare you erase me, BTW), if it can be cleaned up at all, Hhahahaha.

PS Love the way Ann intros Meade, "Who's this mysterious man?", and Meade suddenly appears with singular purpose not unlike the Lone Ranger.

If that lawyer is a 'private sector attorney', he must be broke, because all the "private sector" attorneys I know work their butts off for 60 hours a week or more. They don't have the time to go and protest every day as this guy claims to.

Last night I showed the video clip to my husband and asked him for his response.

He thought the guy in the suit was mocking and being ironic. I can see it now, particularly because of the sunglasses. I originally read him as socially inept. Husband thought the red shirt guy could be clueless, but might just be a better liar.

It was very cool of Meade to clean off the monument. My ancestors fought for the Union, some of whom came from a family that ran a spot on the underground railroad in Iowa.

1848ers were passionate about abolition. A lot of them immigrated to the midwest after that revolution. I wonder if Heg's family were among that group.

I'm a grandmother, and I know what "teabagger" means. As someone who was actually taught something in school, I also know that "Workers of the world unite" is a Communist slogan. (Big "C", not little "c"). Not sure where I learned about "teabagging", though. Must have picked that up after school.

These are the dirtbags who voted on the same side as you did Prof. Althouse. It was the unholy alliance of Blacks, the far left, and educated idiots. Hope you feel good about electing a man who is a Usurper (father was Kenyan), who is bent on the destruction of the US Constitution. (nah, you'll just make excuses).